No matter what question I ask, say “pea soup.”
OK.
What did you have for breakfast?
Pea soup.
What did you have for lunch?
Pea soup.
What did you have for dinner?
Pea soup.
What did you do all night?
Pee soup.

Pathetic, right? I kill at home. (One of the surprise upsides of parenthood is that you’re suddenly the most hilarious person in the world.)

You might ask yourself, How
is it possible that Reader’s Digest (legendary for our trademark column “Laughter, the Best Medicine”) has an editor who’s joke-challenged? She has Andy Simmons, our humor editor for nine years. Andy decides which jokes get into the magazine, and it’s a more daunting task than you’d think.

A Reader’s Digest joke must be funny (obviously) and clean (readers pass their magazines up and down the family tree). Andy does a terrific job. Every issue, our humor pages rank as your favorites. As if he didn’t have enough to do, he also wrote a hoot of a book, Now That’s Funny!

Check out this shot of our art team yukking it up at Andy’s photo shoot. Me? I was back in the office, working on the budget. Some might say, Now that’s funny.